in the world. It agitates either hemisphere. In the sublime language of Milton, it perplexes monarchs with fear of change. British statesmen, in a word, whether we look to the east or to the west, to the north or to the south, to India or to Persia, to Turkey, to Greece, to Naples, to Spain, to Portugal, to Wirtemberg, to Mexico, to Brazil, to Poyais, to Russia, to France, or to ill-fated, unhappy, disunited Ireland,-whichever way we cast our eyes, I repeat it, we shall find that those persons in whom fate, fortune, or merit, have reposed the sway of the affairs of this great empire, have, as the saying is, their hands full of business. England lost but the last year one of the first of her statesmen from excess of business. The weight of business must not be unnecessarily increased the public burdens, too, must be diminished. The tax on the carriage of stones coastways has been abolished that on barilla has been re-established. But this is not all. Improvement must not hesitate nor stumble in her majes tic march. The spirit of Hume walks. Ere long, as Mr Henry Cockburn lately remarked to Lord Rosslynn, it is to be hoped that this great man will even thrust his hand into the pockets of the sinecurists of Scotland. And is this a time for calling upon the legislature of this mighty empire to embarrass themselves with the capaciousness of canvas, the cost of casts, the paucity of picture-purchasers, and the waste and desert baldness of whitewashed church-walls, destitute of gilded frames, and resplendent with no rapture-raising representations of Hiram, Habakkuk, and Holofernes? The supposition is monstrous, and will certainly receive no sanction either from the representatives of the British nation in parliament assembled, or from the Director General. Apply the principle elsewhere, and consider for a moment what would be the infallible result. Painters are not the only artists whose works fail at times to invest them with a lordly proportion of the perishable good things of this sublunary and imperfect world. There are poets-there are prosers too, who, in their own opinion, bene meruerunt Reipublicæ, (far be it from us to assert that their opinion is wrong as to this matter,) and whose performances, nevertheless, are monthly, weekly, daily and hourly, received with hesitation by the bookseller-and with neglect by the book-buyer. Can these things be new to any lady or gentleman who has cast an observant glance upon the course of affairs in the present crisis? No-they are universally knownthey are palpable—they are acknowledged truths. And what is to be the consequence, if whenever Dr Southey publishes a quarto poem, and nobody buys it, he is to apply to his friend Mr Brougham to petition Parliament for redress? What is Parliament to do? Suppose Parliament buys up one edition and makes a bonfire of it, will not this munificence encourage the poet to put forth another quarto, equally bulky and equally unpopular, in the Spring of 'the immediately succeeding year. What?—Is the House of Commons to buy up this quarto too?-Is the British Parliament to buy up the opera omnia of Platonist Taylor ?-Are the public repositories of this empire to be crammed with Mr Macvey Napier's dissertation on the Scope and Tendency of Bacon? Are the two Houses to take in the supererogatory copies of the Edinburgh Review-and thereby make up to its industrious compilers for that deficit of individual favour which begins to throw a shade of disgrace upon the whole intellectual character of the incomprehensible age in which we have had the misfortune to be born? Is the House of Lords to be compelled to sustain the sinking pinions of a certain member of their own noble eyry ? Are they to pass a bill, declaring that "Christian, or the Island," is as good a poem as "The Bride of Abydos," and inflicting the pains and penalties of a high crime and misdemeanor upon all who took in the brochures of John Murray, and yet hesitate to take in the equally wellprinted brochures of John Hunt? No -De maximis non curat Prætor. We are a free people, we received the holy bequest of liberty from our forefathers, and we will hand it down untarnished to our posterity. It is the sacred privilege of Britons to admire, and therefore to purchase, just what pictures, and what books, they choose. That privilege is inborn and inalienable, and the minister who dares to *The "Points of Humour" are to appear in occasional Numbers. No. I. contains about a dozen etchings, and 50 pages of very well written letter-press. The work is published by C. Baldwyn, Newgate Street, London, and the price, per Number, is only 8s., which is dog-cheap, as things go. NEW POETICAL TRANSLATIONS-WIFFEN-ROSE-GOWER. No branch of literature seems to have been cultivated during the season that has just expired, with more distinguished success than that of poetical translation. So much, indeed, has been done in this department, that we find it quite inconsistent with our limits to draw the attention of our readers into the various meritorious works that have accumulated upon our table. We cannot, however, permit the month, which may be considered as the last of the book-buying portion of the year, to pass away without saying a few words concerning each of three publications, which we think more especially entitled to the attention of the lovers of polite litera ture. The first of these is a complete translation of the Poetical Works of Garcilasso De La Vega, by Mr J. H. Wiffen. It is strange enough to find an English Quaker attempting to transfuse the beauties of one of the most stately and chivalric of Castilian bards. Mr Wiffen, however, has contrived to lay aside his drab suit, and to wear the lofty plume and embroidered mantle of the gallant Spaniard, as naturally as if he had never been accustomed to figure among humbler habiliments. We really have not for a long while encountered a volume more entitled to the praise of ELEGANCE. First of all, it is, as to externals, one of the most chaste and beautiful specimens of typographical art and embellishment that ever issued from the English press. And, what is of greater moment, the jewel is quite worthy of the rich casket in which it is placed. Mr Wiffen's own prose introduction is a model of that species of composition, full, clear, yet concise, and above all, entirely unaffected. Of the poetical versions themselves, we shall only say, that the Odes and Lyrical Pieces are much superior to the Eclogues; and that they are so just because Garcilasso's originals were in these cases more worthy of inspiring Mr Wiffen's muse. Our translator is a perfect master of the language in which Garcilasso wrote; and he renders him into English with the ease, the gracefulness, and the majestic flow, of an English poet. Garcilasso was, as almost all the great Spanish geniuses have been, a soldier; he was noble, brave, courteous, amorous, the mirror of Castilian honour and Castilian love; he died, after a life of enterprize, misfortune, and glory, at the early age of thirty; he is the Surrey, and more 1. The Works of Garcilaso de la Vega, surnamed the Prince of Castilian Poets, translated into English Verse; with a Critical and Historical Essay on Spanish Poetry, and a Life of the Author. By J. H. Wiffen. London; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. 1823. 2. The Orlando Furioso, translated into English Verse, from the Italian of Ludovico Ariosto; with Notes. By William Stewart Rose. London; Murray. 1823. 3. Faust; a Drama. By Goethe. And Schiller's Song of the Bell; translated by Lord Francis Leveson Gower. London; Murray. 1823. than the Surrey of Spanish letters. We should willingly allot many pages to him and his worthy translator,but, for the present, we must confiné ourselves to a couple of specimens. The following Ode was addressed by Garcilasso to a young Neapolitan lady, (called the Flower of GNIDO, from the quarter of the city of Naples in which she lived,) at the time when a friend of the poet's was enamoured of her. Nothing, we apprehend, can be more perfectly elegant THE FLOWER OF GNIDO. 1. "HAD I the sweet resounding lyre, 2. "Think not, think not, fair flower of Gnide, It e'er should celebrate the scars, And forged the chains that now control 3. "No, no! its harmonies should ring 4. "Of that poor captive, too contemn'd, 5. "Not now he wields for thy sweet sake Consults not now, it can but kiss 6. "Through thee, my dearest friend and best Grows harsh, importunate, and grave; 7. "In snows on rocks, sweet Flower of Gnide, Thou wert not cradled, wert not born, 8. "Whilst yet soft pity she repell'd, 9. Then first she felt her bosom bleed With love and pity; vain distress! Oh what deep rigours must succeed This first sole touch of tenderness! Her eyes grow glazed and motionless, Nail'd on his wavering corse, each bone Hard'ning in growth, invades her flesh, Which, late so rosy, warm, and fresh, Now stagnates into stone. 10. "From limb to limb the frosts aspire, 11. "Then tempt not thou Fate's angry armis, By cruel frown or icy taunt; But let thy perfect deeds and charms Else must our weeping strings presume The next is valuable, not only for the great beauty of its language, (to which Wiffen does, on the whole, justice) but as presenting one of the most happy specimens of that particular vein, which was produced by the mixture of Italian ornament, with the deep native sentiment of Castilian passion. THE PROGRESS OF PASSION FOR HIS LADY. 1. "ONCE more from the dark ivies, my proud harp! I wish the sharpness of my ills to be Shown in thy sounds, as they have been shown sharp In their effects; I must bewail to thee The occasions of my grief, the world shall know Wherefore I perish; I at least will die For by the tresses I am dragg'd along The pathway with my blood, it rushes by, Than the swift-footed winds themselves more swift; And, to torment me for a longer space, "Her eyes, whose lustre could irradiate well The raven night, and dim the mid-day sun, Changed me at once by some emphatic spell From what I was-I gazed, and it was done. Too finish'd fascination! glass'd in mine, My struggling Reason was entrapp'd, like In the strong arms of Appetite, the fame For me this capture to go gaze, debarr'd Who could believe that I am fall'n so low, To freer thoughts,as mournfully mis-spent! But this one grief, and even the rising ghost Of dead joy, gliding by, is heeded not; 8. "In midst of all this agony and woe, A shade of good descends my wounds to heal; Surely, I fancy, my beloved foe Must feel some little part of what I feel. I must at once die-die without my crown And thus from my most miserable estate I draw a gleam of good. But soon my fate this train of things re These beautiful verses will, we trust, sufficiently recommend Mr Wiffen to the notice of our readers. He is engaged in a work of still greater importance a new translation of Tasso into English ottava rima, and we confess that we look forward with the highest expectation to a Jerusalem executed by such a hand. Indeed, Mr Wiffen has already published a small specimen of his Tasso; and there can be no doubt, that, when his work is finished, he must find himself in possession of a very enviable reputation. On comparing the fragment he has print |